I put used bobbies back in their container.
Is it penny pinching, a form of cheapskatery? How did I get this habit? From saving the best for last on my plate? No. Sometimes, not often, but occasionally I eat dessert first, not last.
Is it because when I got back from life in Malibu (lived there when John was in TV's "Northern Exposure"), I couldn't find anything to wear in my NYC closet? Clothes fit, but they weren't my taste anymore. I threw out a ton of lovely things, including my "Russian Czarina's" black coat with a high collar, flared skirt. I still miss it, wish I had it back.
Is it because you don't throw out love letters, earrings, or gorgeous boots that hurt your feet? Is it because prices of everything are going up up up, and bobbie pins used to cost ...I don't remember, but certainly not what they cost now?
I'm thinking of the early versions of projects that I don't throw out, and tape recordings I labored over. I spliced out clicks from Mahler's Tenth -- it was background for my dance drama "Zinnia." I can't put the master tape or copies of it into a trash bag.
When necessity demands, I give myself a gold star for being a ruthless thrower-outer. But bobbie pins, rubber bands ... ?
I guess I don't throw them out because I'm a useful thing, and I don't want to get thrown out.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Friday, April 3, 2009
THE MAKING OF "EM"
A website, a blog are not things I ever thought about till nine weeks ago.
Today Fran and Sue got the first "stats." Fran the designer was proud, Sue, who's handling the PR, was proud. "Em" was back in Edinburgh, in the great grand theater where my dressing room was where the greatest Shakespearean actors of Great Britain once upon a time powdered, prepared.
Huge old theater, at least three balconies. No heat. Winter. A morning performance. The members of my dance company were peeved, cold, sleepy, outraged that we were on stage, warming up on ancient floor boards, with vapor from our breathing visible as we said "Good morning."
Grim performance. There were only 30 people in the audience. But I was in Edinburgh, and in my mind, it was a precious memory, cold as I was, an achievement to be there.
There were four people in the audience when I performed in Sidney Australia.. The program was me alone, dancing Opus 10, all of Vivaldi's "Four Seasons." I wanted to pay them for their tickets, pay them extra if only they'd be willing to leave.
Once, just one time, I danced for 10,000 in an outdoor stadium.
Most of the time, practically all of the time on my 1000 one-night-stands which became more than a 1000 before I finally decided I CANNOT DO THIS ANYMORE, the audiences were small...90, 50, 125, maybe 250. A modern dancer and her troupe on a college campus concert series is not a big draw.
In New York, on Broadway, when John Cullum and Emily Frankel did "Kings" at the Alvin Theatre on four Saturday nights, the house had to be papered. ("Paper" means tickets were given away.) When I did "Zinnia" at the Colonnades for 55 performances, it was the most performances I'd ever done in one theater, whereas, when John unpacks his makeup kit in a Broadway house, the kit stays there -- the same dressing room has often been his for a year or longer.
No, I don't think about this very often. When I was little and dreamed of being a dancer "till death do me part," I would have been thrilled to know that I would do in Dance what I've done. But today, when Fran and Sue showed me the stats, how many hits on our Website, how many files, pages, chapters downloaded, how many visitors ...... My eyes fill with tears. A website barely one week old, and more eyes have been on "Em" then ever before.
Today Fran and Sue got the first "stats." Fran the designer was proud, Sue, who's handling the PR, was proud. "Em" was back in Edinburgh, in the great grand theater where my dressing room was where the greatest Shakespearean actors of Great Britain once upon a time powdered, prepared.
Huge old theater, at least three balconies. No heat. Winter. A morning performance. The members of my dance company were peeved, cold, sleepy, outraged that we were on stage, warming up on ancient floor boards, with vapor from our breathing visible as we said "Good morning."
Grim performance. There were only 30 people in the audience. But I was in Edinburgh, and in my mind, it was a precious memory, cold as I was, an achievement to be there.
There were four people in the audience when I performed in Sidney Australia.. The program was me alone, dancing Opus 10, all of Vivaldi's "Four Seasons." I wanted to pay them for their tickets, pay them extra if only they'd be willing to leave.
Once, just one time, I danced for 10,000 in an outdoor stadium.
Most of the time, practically all of the time on my 1000 one-night-stands which became more than a 1000 before I finally decided I CANNOT DO THIS ANYMORE, the audiences were small...90, 50, 125, maybe 250. A modern dancer and her troupe on a college campus concert series is not a big draw.
In New York, on Broadway, when John Cullum and Emily Frankel did "Kings" at the Alvin Theatre on four Saturday nights, the house had to be papered. ("Paper" means tickets were given away.) When I did "Zinnia" at the Colonnades for 55 performances, it was the most performances I'd ever done in one theater, whereas, when John unpacks his makeup kit in a Broadway house, the kit stays there -- the same dressing room has often been his for a year or longer.
No, I don't think about this very often. When I was little and dreamed of being a dancer "till death do me part," I would have been thrilled to know that I would do in Dance what I've done. But today, when Fran and Sue showed me the stats, how many hits on our Website, how many files, pages, chapters downloaded, how many visitors ...... My eyes fill with tears. A website barely one week old, and more eyes have been on "Em" then ever before.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
WORK IS GOD IS WORK
Some people have religion, I have work. It doesn't have to be actual writing. It's busy fingers, absorbed mind, concentration on something outside of me, like DOMESTICITIES -- that scratch on black linoleum I'm going to try and wax away -- and MENDING -- the collar on JC's grey NYC Opera sweater-shirt. It needs to be re-sewed on the sewing machine.
It's is a 9610 Industrial Singer my father gave me -- once upon a time it was a machine in his children's dress factory. (There's a bit about that machine In "Heart City," page 188. ) I learned to sew when I was in grade school. Bought a pattern, suffered with the instructions and laying out the rebellious tissue paper pieces, but made an old-fashioned dress with a bustle to wear for a Thanksgiving assembly program.
First costume I ever made ... no inkling did I have, that my sewing would turn into making costumes for a dance company of six. In the beginning I had to. We didn't have enough money.
I made a green shirt for JC in our early courtship days, a birthday present, which he wore to an audition and got the job -- $22.50 week doing a play in a very tiny theater (before there was an Off Broadway.) My work on that shirt won me love.
But here's the real reason work is what I'm preaching as my fingers fly today over the keys. When you get an idea, enough of an idea to put into a sentence that you can immortalize by typing it out -- that's a Wow! You're excited, amused, full of trepidation. A vision, a hope, a dream is born. It's something to reach for that's better than reaching for a star because you can get there, touch it, grab it. Use it.
Layering that first sentence; expanding it and shrinking it, explaining it to someone -- you've started down the road on a walk that will probably become an adventurous long trip.
You work not for money, not for winning, just work for the work of it. It's like crocheting. With a Queen Ann Tablecloth pattern that I got from a HOW TO CROCHET book, I used crocheting to keep me busy on the bus trip I made every day to a hospital in the Bronx when Mom was there for a month. It turned into a sixty-four doily tablecloth for the dining room table.
Intricate stitching, six chains, loop and go back, pearl three, loop four, double-stitch, triple-stitch -- it's not much different from making a plot, thinking up, crocheting, creating characters, (175 for Cordelia's story in "Somebody"), or in my plays, other books -- creating a triple-stitched background for every character.
I love that! I love the infinity that's in the work of my work.
It's is a 9610 Industrial Singer my father gave me -- once upon a time it was a machine in his children's dress factory. (There's a bit about that machine In "Heart City," page 188. ) I learned to sew when I was in grade school. Bought a pattern, suffered with the instructions and laying out the rebellious tissue paper pieces, but made an old-fashioned dress with a bustle to wear for a Thanksgiving assembly program.
First costume I ever made ... no inkling did I have, that my sewing would turn into making costumes for a dance company of six. In the beginning I had to. We didn't have enough money.
I made a green shirt for JC in our early courtship days, a birthday present, which he wore to an audition and got the job -- $22.50 week doing a play in a very tiny theater (before there was an Off Broadway.) My work on that shirt won me love.
But here's the real reason work is what I'm preaching as my fingers fly today over the keys. When you get an idea, enough of an idea to put into a sentence that you can immortalize by typing it out -- that's a Wow! You're excited, amused, full of trepidation. A vision, a hope, a dream is born. It's something to reach for that's better than reaching for a star because you can get there, touch it, grab it. Use it.
Layering that first sentence; expanding it and shrinking it, explaining it to someone -- you've started down the road on a walk that will probably become an adventurous long trip.
You work not for money, not for winning, just work for the work of it. It's like crocheting. With a Queen Ann Tablecloth pattern that I got from a HOW TO CROCHET book, I used crocheting to keep me busy on the bus trip I made every day to a hospital in the Bronx when Mom was there for a month. It turned into a sixty-four doily tablecloth for the dining room table.
Intricate stitching, six chains, loop and go back, pearl three, loop four, double-stitch, triple-stitch -- it's not much different from making a plot, thinking up, crocheting, creating characters, (175 for Cordelia's story in "Somebody"), or in my plays, other books -- creating a triple-stitched background for every character.
I love that! I love the infinity that's in the work of my work.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
THE # ONE PRETTIEST GIRL
It wasn't Emily F. Her name was Carlie, and she did toe tap, back flips, no handed cartwheels and wore a tutu with sparkles on it for the 4th grader's talent show.
I wanted to be in the show but my talent was getting the highest marks.
After the show, Carlie and I were walking home – I was wearing a royal blue dress with thin white stripes. At my father's factory, they made KATE GREENAWAY dresses. Once a month I'd go to the factory with him. He'd take me to racks with my size and let me pick out a sample.
Carlie was bubbling over about acrobatics and the splits and tap classes, and her next performance at the local dance school's annual show for the parents. Looking down at my dress, which was princess style (Daddy said) because it curved and fitted my almost curvy, not really curvy little girl shape, I was getting ready to compliment Carlie politely --I didn't want her to know I was jealous.
I opened my mouth and said, "I want to be a dancer more than anything in the world."
Carlie said, "Your legs are nice. You have a nice shape. Your neck is long. You do sort of look like a ballerina."
I took it! I grabbed it. It was my Tell Nobody dream that had been getting larger and larger -- like a weather balloon, radius 4 feet, 6 feet, 8 feet Pi - R - squared -- it was already big. Carlie's words enabled me to blow air into the balloon and it's never stopped growing.
As an ex-dancer, I dance every day. Not exercise. Nope. I go into my studio. Its a 45 x 25 foot space. It transforms into a rentable theater, which I don't rent out. It's only for me, JC and JD. In it, I warm up, very simply, unstrenuously, without boring endless repetitions and the hope of losing weight or firming up sloppy saggy anything (though there are places where it might be good but I don't look at them). The Warm-up's about 26 minutes of a basic ballet barre that I've evolved, that fits what I can do without too much discomfort. Then I switch on the music. (Vaughan Williams, "Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis.")I wanted to be in the show but my talent was getting the highest marks.
After the show, Carlie and I were walking home – I was wearing a royal blue dress with thin white stripes. At my father's factory, they made KATE GREENAWAY dresses. Once a month I'd go to the factory with him. He'd take me to racks with my size and let me pick out a sample.
Carlie was bubbling over about acrobatics and the splits and tap classes, and her next performance at the local dance school's annual show for the parents. Looking down at my dress, which was princess style (Daddy said) because it curved and fitted my almost curvy, not really curvy little girl shape, I was getting ready to compliment Carlie politely --I didn't want her to know I was jealous.
I opened my mouth and said, "I want to be a dancer more than anything in the world."
Carlie said, "Your legs are nice. You have a nice shape. Your neck is long. You do sort of look like a ballerina."
I took it! I grabbed it. It was my Tell Nobody dream that had been getting larger and larger -- like a weather balloon, radius 4 feet, 6 feet, 8 feet Pi - R - squared -- it was already big. Carlie's words enabled me to blow air into the balloon and it's never stopped growing.
Seventeen minutes. It's choreographed. A visit into the room: I've placed 3 chairs, a small box to step up on, a barre made of pipes, that JC made so I could have a portable bar in the studio. The choreograhy is divided into 4 sections. I dance a section for two days, then the next section for two days; the next, and then the next. After eight days of sections, I dance the whole 17 minutes for two days. Then I'm back to the beginning again.
Thank you Carlie, I don't do toe tap, but I become the # one prettiest girl in the world just about every ten days.
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